Broadband in the US: not as good as you think, it seems...

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Broadband in the US: not as good as you think, it seems...

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#389210 7-Oct-2010 14:59

there are minimum fee's for electricity supply, gas supply, water supply (in some areas, others have it built in to rates, or consumption charges).

your ISP has to rent the line to your house, there is upkeep on all that infrastructure - its a bit more than 'nothing'. Not to mention the email servers, web hosting and other products they roll in to a connection.

It does not mean there should be minimum charges for internet connection. It's just an excuse to have them on.

Opt me out from all additional services. I don't want them :) give me an option to sign up for additional services and so on.

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graemeh

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#389259 7-Oct-2010 16:31

kobiak:
there are minimum fee's for electricity supply, gas supply, water supply (in some areas, others have it built in to rates, or consumption charges).

your ISP has to rent the line to your house, there is upkeep on all that infrastructure - its a bit more than 'nothing'. Not to mention the email servers, web hosting and other products they roll in to a connection.

It does not mean there should be minimum charges for internet connection. It's just an excuse to have them on.

Opt me out from all additional services. I don't want them :) give me an option to sign up for additional services and so on.

So how does the ISP pay for the cost of having a phone line to your house if there isn't a minimum rental fee paid by you?

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#389261 7-Oct-2010 16:52

>So how does the ISP pay for the cost of having a phone line to your house if there isn't a minimum rental fee paid by you?

It should be covered under telephone bill only. if naked DSL, then I could understand minimum servicing fee... but for ordinary dsl. just pay per data used. no additional cost.

And yes, I know FTTH where no additional charges, just for traffic consumed or unlimited plan with different limits for speed. not NZ though :(

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petes117

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#389262 7-Oct-2010 16:57

Regs:
gurthang117: They don't know how good they've got it for DSL in America. "Data cap? Whats that?"

we're never going to be 'on par' with data costs in the US. Their data does not have to transit 20,000km of undersea fiber cable.

I never said we would be on par, but I hate reading about Americans whining about their expensive/poor quality services.

Though we could do better than Telecom's "Most Popular" plan of a 3gb data cap, when the US are introducing 500gb or soft caps as freitasm mentioned

freitasm

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#389264 7-Oct-2010 17:00

gurthang117: Though we could do better than Telecom's "Most Popular" plan of a 3gb data cap, when the US are introducing 500gb or soft caps as freitasm mentioned

Telecom's "Most Popular" plan is just that, popular. There are bigger plans. My parents-in-law are using less than 5GB a month. I use more than 100GB a month.

From what I've heard average New Zealand user consumes less than 10GB a month.

What we miss here is plans with adequately large caps. Although there are ISPs where you can buy additional packages. Obviously we then go into "yeah, but I want all you can eat for $29.95 a month" and we know this discussion would never end.

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petes117

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#389271 7-Oct-2010 17:14

freitasm:
gurthang117: Though we could do better than Telecom's "Most Popular" plan of a 3gb data cap, when the US are introducing 500gb or soft caps as freitasm mentioned

Telecom's "Most Popular" plan is just that, popular. There are bigger plans. My parents-in-law are using less than 5GB a month. I use more than 100GB a month.

From what I've heard average New Zealand user consumes less than 10GB a month.

What we miss here is plans with adequately large caps. Although there are ISPs where you can buy additional packages. Obviously we then go into "yeah, but I want all you can eat for $29.95 a month" and we know this discussion would never end.

Ah good point! Yes it would certainly be nice if the market catered to all of its customer's preferences :)

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#389272 7-Oct-2010 17:18

gurthang117:
Regs:
gurthang117: They don't know how good they've got it for DSL in America. "Data cap? Whats that?"

we're never going to be 'on par' with data costs in the US. Their data does not have to transit 20,000km of undersea fiber cable.

I never said we would be on par, but I hate reading about Americans whining about their expensive/poor quality services.

Though we could do better than Telecom's "Most Popular" plan of a 3gb data cap, when the US are introducing 500gb or soft caps as freitasm mentioned

eveb in the US, where data caps are nonexistant or very high (several hundered GB) the average usage is still less than 10GB per connection.

http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?seoid=Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use

"Currently, the median data usage by Comcast High-Speed Internet customers is approximately 2 - 4GB each month"

Fraps

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#389357 7-Oct-2010 21:48

Do they have long term contracts over at the US too? I am not too sure about Australia, but if we expunge the long term contracts wouldn't that increase competition? Because we are able to move more freely for better prices.

From what I've heard average New Zealand user consumes less than 10GB a month.

I read that figure somewhere too. But I bet the majority of those users who are under that 10GB/month probable NEVER download video content or music and only use their internet for emails and maybe the occasional news?

Those who are using their internet multimedia are probably reaching their cap way before the month is over. Though it would be nice for a independent 3rd party could actually measure and publish some statistics.

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#389362 7-Oct-2010 22:03

You need to remember that the vast majority of data traffic in the US is national, we are the opposite. There, data caps are far less of a cost impact, their problem with unlimited is congestion due to filesharing.

How can that be?? Well they have cables too, and phonelines too. Being in big America doesnt make their cabling any different to ours. If it congests it congests.

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#389363 7-Oct-2010 22:10

Fraps: I read that figure somewhere too. But I bet the majority of those users who are under that 10GB/month probable NEVER download video content or music and only use their internet for emails and maybe the occasional news?

So? The figure is an average. As in any average there are extremes. Of course we would have to look more closely to remove the extremes of the sampling, but it doesn't change it.

We are not loking on what people are doing, but how much they are consuming. Of course, with time, this usage pattern will change, and so the average - most likely to higher numbers.

tdgeek: You need to remember that the vast majority of data traffic in the US is national, we are the opposite. There, data caps are far less of a cost impact, their problem with unlimited is congestion due to filesharing.

The original article is about the wholesale, not traffic in itself.

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#389365 7-Oct-2010 22:13

Fraps
[I read that figure somewhere too. But I bet the majority of those users who are under that 10GB/month probable NEVER download video content or music and only use their internet for emails and maybe the occasional news?
]

You make it sound like downloading video content and music is the norm? It may be for you but the average monthly traffic in NZ and in the US is less then 5Gb as stated in this thread. That is the norm. 5000Mb a month is a heap of browsing. If you only causally browse and email,500Mb is plenty. If 3Gb was an average for example that can be seen as email, browsing and plenty of other "normal" things. Hence the internet is part of their life, not their life. There are also light users, and also more active, those into video content (not referring to downloading screeds of movies per week!)

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tdgeek

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#389368 7-Oct-2010 22:19

Mauricio The original article is about the wholesale, not traffic in itself.

Yep. My point was more to throw this in, given that many seem to think the US speed/caps/price can be compared to NZ, whereas it cannot be compared as apples to apples. If kiwis somehow predominantly used local traffic as many other nations or regions do, then everyhting would be different here. Speeds faster, costs to provide lower.

webnation

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#389380 7-Oct-2010 22:54

It's a interesting read, both the article and comments, the article is quit true i guess...

Read their "National broadband plan" infrastructure part which is all about make it easier for someone to build a new network but did not mention anything about share the existing one..
http://www.broadband.gov/plan/6-infrastructure/
The only way to compete with existing cable/phone line providers there its too do Wireless business because they use PUBLICLY OWNED SPECTRUM...

They will "envy" us because here we are going to have two Fibres (to utilities and businesses though)
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/two-fibres-per-home-plan-unveiled

And also it will be interesting to know whether Japan / Korean have a Open and competitive Network?

dman

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#389493 8-Oct-2010 11:19

tdgeek: Fraps
[I read that figure somewhere too. But I bet the majority of those users who are under that 10GB/month probable NEVER download video content or music and only use their internet for emails and maybe the occasional news?
]

You make it sound like downloading video content and music is the norm? It may be for you but the average monthly traffic in NZ and in the US is less then 5Gb as stated in this thread. That is the norm. 5000Mb a month is a heap of browsing. If you only causally browse and email,500Mb is plenty. If 3Gb was an average for example that can be seen as email, browsing and plenty of other "normal" things. Hence the internet is part of their life, not their life. There are also light users, and also more active, those into video content (not referring to downloading screeds of movies per week!)

If you play music videos from youtube now and then in the background while you're at home, plus watch a bit of tvnz on demand to catch up on shows it is easy enough to go past your 10gig. And that is if you're a single user...

You have to remember internet plans are for HOUSEHOLDS, even with just a couple of people it is easy as to blow by your datacap.... & I'm living in a 3 bedroom apartment.

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#389502 8-Oct-2010 11:28

dman

I fully agree, if you have a more active household as you describe yes you will use more than 10Gb. maybe 20Gb, maybe 40Gb, maybe a little more. That will work with todays plans as a higher user in the range of low, medium and high.

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